


The Luminaries

by GirlofBlueFire (QuicksilverDreams)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Enemies to Allies, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Zutara, Zutara Week, Zutara Week 2020, all prompts to some degree, canon compliant until end, trying to be poetic and yet chart their canon interactions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuicksilverDreams/pseuds/GirlofBlueFire
Summary: She is the moon and he is the sun. They circle each other time and again, tracing the heavens with their battles, tracking each other across the skies.Zuko reflects on every stage of his relationship with Katara. They’ve been through war and desolation, betrayal and redemption. Will he lose her now when he’s finally discovered what she means to him?
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 56
Collections: Zutara Week 2020





	The Luminaries

**Author's Note:**

> My speed-written one-shot fanfic for Zutara Week 2020. This story covers all themes to some degree - Reunion, Counterpart, Fuse, Celestial, Hesitancy, Affirm, Rebirth.

It's always been the same for Zuko ever since that first sight at the South Pole. Ever hunting the Avatar, not realising the real thing was right in front of him.

_"Destiny is a funny thing, Prince Zuko…"_

Eyes as blue as the ocean, they widen every time they see him - first with shock, then horror, before narrowing in anger.

_"It's not the girl I'm after, it's the bald monk she's travelling with."_

The chase continues island to island, then across the Earth Kingdom, ravaged by his family. Again they meet on the roof of the world, where she is the moon and he is the sun. They circle each other time and again, tracing the heavens with their battles, tracking each other through the skies.

* * *

There's his quarry - passive, locked in meditation. But the Avatar has his guardian - a true Spirit in blue.

The waterbender's in her element - surrounded by ice with the moon high above and incarnated in the pool beside her. Zuko can feel her power. Alien and primordial, it's already tried to kill him once tonight below the frozen surface.

She's smarter now, quicker, almost cocky. Well he can be cocky too when the sun rises and kisses its firstborn son - the true heir to the Fire Nation.

He feels the thud of her back against the wood as he finally defeats her and wonders at the flash of regret amidst the triumph.

_"You rise with the moon. I rise with the sun."_

No time to dwell on it as he drags the runt into the blizzard. He will regain his honour and his father's love.

* * *

Their second duel of the day is not so victorious. Zuko lasts all of five seconds. He hates her for that, the indignity of it. The Fire Prince bested by a peasant and novice bender.

* * *

He had his hands on her slim wrists once. Hemmed in by pirates beside the midnight river. Had her tied against a tree - the perfect tight-lipped prisoner. Then pressed against his back on June's monstrosity. But still he's chasing air and the wind cannot be caught.

* * *

For once they fight side by side against Azula, the dust of the desert in their hair. But the waterbender's plea of assistance cannot penetrate the anguish of his uncle's prone form.

He rejects her offer (stupid, foolish) and doesn't feel her gaze in Ba Sing Se when his back is turned. Even then she is drawn to him as he is to her.

Moon chases sun. Sun chases moon.

* * *

An underground forest of crystal casts her in emerald hues but her anger is red raw when he sees her next. She hits him with the flame that's burnt him ever since Zuko was a boy. Not his father's but worse. The secret wound that bleeds unstaunched and unnoticed. She too has lost a mother to the Fire Nation. She reflects his hidden loss like a mirror.

Moon and sun lie beneath the earth and for a moment Zuko feels something like an underground river feeding the depths. She touches his face and he cannot resist, her touch is numinous and he's defenceless.

* * *

How he wishes that moment had lasted forever even as he tries to repress it on the ship back to Calderra City. The moment before the Avatar blasted in and destroyed everything as always. The moment before Azula came and offered him something he could not refuse, even if it meant rejecting those pure eyes and that soft touch.

The moon shines on him in reproach. It is full and open without restrain, just like her compassion which he has thrown away. His uncle lies in chains below deck - a far greater pain - yet betraying her has its price too. It's another knife in the dark when he cannot sleep. The waterbender's compassion is her revenge, she will never know how much she torments him, holding up that Spirit Water in his memory and damning him.

_"…I have healing abilities…"_

_"…It has special properties so I've been saving it for something important…"_

_It could have been you, Zuko…you could have been healed._

But now it will go to the Avatar. She will resurrect him like the sun reborn from the night's clutches. The prince knows it, feels it in his bones. And thus the waterbender will undo his precious dream as well as all the sacrifices he's made to attain it. She will put out the fires of homecoming and reveal Zuko for the lying eel he is, washed up with the morning swell. His father will hate him, Azula will turn on him, his country will reject him and there will be no Uncle Iroh to salve the wounds this time. And no gentle touch amongst the crystal.

* * *

He's defied his hateful father.

He's broken those fateful ties at last. Aang has befriended him. They all have.

Apart from her.

Kind Katara, altruistic Katara, the one who reached out to Zuko in the desert and again in the Crystal Catacombs, who offered him their precious water from the very Spirit Oasis he desecrated, cannot stand the sight of him.

Like Koh the Face Stealer she wears the visages of his mother, father and uncle. Their justified distain bear down on him. She knows Zuko in all his guises - every weakness, every failure, every opportunity missed. Katara looks down on him from a great height and all he wants is her forgiveness.

The sun had been so high when he strode down that gangplank and first caught the sight of her, looking at him with shock and then horror. How the mighty have fallen…

_"What can I do to make it up to you?"_

_"…I do care what she thinks of me."_

* * *

It's hard to know where Zuko ends and Katara begins when he wakes on the bison he's been chasing for so long. Her hollowed out eyes tell him the story of his loss more keenly then his own lips.

Mother. They are going to get justice for their - _her_ \- mother.

He looks on, sickened, as the soldier's flesh warps under her power, the man's very blood turning against him.

Agni, she could have killed him. She meant everything she said back in the Western Air Temple.

But she doesn't kill Yon Rha.

Katara masters the fire and he watches it smoulder and recede within her. His admiration is so strong he cannot contain it. Zuko's seen her grow more than anyone - enemy to ally, novice to master.

The press of her arms is bliss - pure and simple. He cannot fathom it immediately. It takes a moment to sink in, she isn't just in his arms - she has forgiven him.

She has forgiven him!

A solar eclipse of the sweetest kind. Zuko wants her to linger there forever, even with Aang watching. Especially with Aang watching…She feels so right in his arms and him in hers.

* * *

Zuko's with them now, accepted at last and yes this is it, this is the home he was searching for in the pyre of his father's throne room. But the whole world will become that pyre if he doesn't help stop it.

* * *

He hates the play. It's crass, stupid and far too close to the bone. The scenes with Uncle are the worst but his and Katara's are bad, especially when she's next to him and Aang's a brooding mass to his left.

_"I've had eyes for you since the day you first captured me…"_

Zuko doesn't want to dwell on how he feels about that, not when Katara's right there and the audience is sneering all around them. He accidentally meets her gaze and they both blush and edge away.

_What does that mean? Does that mean you could never like me?_

* * *

Katara's organising the old beach house into a comfortable makeshift abode. The world may be ending but it seems fitting, she's presiding over the last place he felt happy with his family. And Katara knows that secret pain. He wishes she didn't. She of all people shouldn't have to suffer a mother's loss, a family's breakdown.

_Do you know everywhere you go, you make everyone feel at home? You make them a family, Katara._

It's too much. He can't think past the comet and how the dark fire he was born into is about to scorch the world.

And there's Uncle…

* * *

Zuko hovers outside the tent, sick to his stomach. His father was needlessly cruel, Zuko has finally acknowledged that fact, but he deserves Iroh's banishment. He's been rude and obnoxious at every turn and Uncle has only ever supported him. Until Ba Sing Se.

But the moon sees his anguish again and she's by his side once more.

_"Zuko, you're sorry for what you did, right?"_

_"More sorry than I've been about anything in my entire life."_

_"Then he will forgive you. He will."_

The crush of his uncle's hug is the whole circumference of the world welcoming Zuko back. It is absolution and redemption and both sides of himself old and new crashing together in joyous harmony.

_"I did lose my way."_

_"But you found it again. And you did it by yourself."_

Well not entirely…where it counts he had, yet he'd still be outside this tent gnawing himself to pieces if not for her.

 _How do you know the magic words to say, Katara? How do you know what to do whenever I lose my way?_ _What would you have said in the Crystal Catacombs, if you hadn't been forced to leave? When you looked back at me…_

_That look still haunts me._

_You haunt me._

* * *

His father - no - _Ozai_ is about to destroy the world but he's not Zuko's objective. That target has been relinquished. Aang will have to step up now, there's no more Zuko or his other mentors can teach him.

Zuko's opponent has always been Azula. The fight that was destined.

_"I can handle Azula."_

_"Not alone, you'll need help."_

_"…You're right. Katara, how would you like to help me put Azula in her place?_

_"It would be my pleasure."_

* * *

_This is how it was meant to be._

_You and me. Side by side._

_The choice I should have made in Ba Sing Se._

Azula is unhinged, Zuko's never seen her like this. But in fact this is how she's always been underneath, like an overturned corpse wriggling with maggots. The madness in her eyes has eaten her alive and hopes to feast on him as it had all those bleak years of childhood.

But he is balanced with the moon beside him. Zuko feels it like the earth under his feet, the flow of her currents, the wicked wind that moves to his call now. The planet is united in him, in _them_ , and even Azula's brilliance cannot eclipse it.

Zuko parts the oceans of his sister's fire and at last knocks her from her lofty throne. This is what he's always dreamt of. He is free, strong, himself at last. A phoenix reborn from the ashes of his former life. He will be Fire Lord today.

How could he forget Azula always has a trump card? She strikes as ever at his heart.

At Katara.

_"The stomach detour is critical. You must not let the lightning pass through your heart or the damage could be deadly."_

_But it will strike the heart, Uncle. It will kill her!_

Zuko's seen the world go black when the moon died. And he knows he'll go as mad as the tides did if Katara falls.

_You can hack my head off, Azula, set me on fire. You can own this world forever but I won't let you take her!_

He grasps for the lightning, how he doesn't know. But the Spirits are with him, the Gods answer his prayers and the lightning strikes his chest, electrocuting him.

He holds it to himself, cradling the destruction so not one sliver of Azula's wrath can touch Katara.

Death is writing his name in its book and he can see the Spirit World flicker before him as he lies limp as a rag-doll and twitches. Zuko listens helplessly as his sister hunts the girl he loves. Lightning crackles, hungry, and there's shouts and crashes of ice. Mad laughter is followed by sprays of water. He struggles again, groaning but cannot rise.

Katara is strong, she is wily. He knows this more than most. She bested Azula before, he's seen it.

 _Please,_ he prays amidst the blue-edged agony. _Please protect her._

Who will it be, who comes to pick him up? Which girl, both of whom have shaped his destiny?

Firm hands heave him on to his back and he sees blue again, wide with shock and horror - the same look. It's the last thing he'll ever witness but at least he's seen her again. Those gorgeous eyes as deep and soulful as the ocean.

Katara's power is a balm to his sister's evisceration, the cooling water seeping into his chi meridians like she's seeped into his soul.

_"Thank you, Katara."_

_"I'm the one who should be thanking you!"_

* * *

He wants to be happy for her and Aang, he wants to be faithful to Mai. All of them deserve this. But the sun longs for the moon and he craves his counterpart.

Water is next to Air in the Avatar cycle and the first thing Aang saw when he awoke was those blue eyes he tells Zuko later in a love-soaked haze. Katara sealed all their destinies when she broke open that iceberg.

The Fire Nation needs someone with unquestionable honour to restore it. That's what his uncle said and Zuko's not about to betray his trust again. Nor Aang's - his new found brother.

_But don't you feel it, Katara? This energy between you and me? Does it feel the same to stand side by side with him, the way you stood beside me?_

Zuko is not his ancestors, he's rejected their lust for conquest. Yet, Agni help him, if there isn't a dying flicker of that desire, like sparking embers that can reignite the whole blaze, when he sees Katara lower her head to receive Aang's kiss.

He's better than Sozin, more generous than Azulon, wiser and gentler than Ozai. But for one instant he stumbles, seeing his finger thrust out in Azula's life-ending lightning and obliterating his rival forever.

He crushes the embers and watches the wind swirl and dance the moon away.

* * *

The tides bring Katara back to him. Zuko feels her more keenly than the volcanos of the archipelago he now governs, the hidden lava firebending tells him flows beneath his feet. She's in his veins and Azula's lightning is let loose again in Zuko's chest.

Words were whispered, rumours he shouldn't feel giddy to hear. The Avatar's lost his love, they've parted ways. Waterbenders are fey like the tides, they say. Fickle like the moon that waxes and wanes. And he wants to scream at them that Katara's more constant than anyone he knows, she put her life and soul on the line more times than they will ever comprehend.

He's watched her grow from the frightened girl at the South Pole to the woman that stands before him now - this leader, this Spirit.

Blue eyes widen on meeting his, but they don't fill with horror. There's a soft smile, a gentle knowing and moon again reflects sun.

Zuko's heart is in his mouth, he has to know. Why has she come? Is it for the reason that sings in him?

But there's too many damn people and the Fire Lord's robes weigh heavily.

Katara walks beside him up the road in silence amidst the cries of welcome.

 _The Painted Lady returns,_ Zuko smiles, but this time she needs to heal the Lord, not just his people.

 _I don't want to put that burden on you,_ he reprimands himself, _I don't want you to have to be the saviour to the nation that brutalised your country and took your mother from you._

But he is the son of Fire and she's the daughter of Water, if anyone can unite the opposites it's them.

* * *

All day he struggles, saying everything and nothing.

 _Read between the lines,_ he pleads with his glances. _Save me from myself, Katara._

It's night and there's no moon, she's here with him on the rooftop of the palace away from prying eyes. They trace the starry paths above with their fingers, watching a far more benign comet strike the heavens with a burst of light. A shooting star - a brief, brilliant wish against the darkness.

It's cool for once and she holds his arm for warmth, mere companionship but comfortable. Does she know she's torturing him far more successfully than Azula ever did? His pulse races like the drums before an Agni Kai, she must feel it.

"It's late…I should go…" Katara gets up slowly, holding him for balance even though he's seen her manoeuvre on an ice raft perfectly. Zuko rises much more awkwardly, searching for anything to make her stay.

"Er yeah…"

Words have never been his strong suit. He rubs the back of his head in lieu of hitting himself and feels the censure of his uncle and the Air Temple frog.

Katara's lips quirk in amusement or disappointment, he can't tell. She turns away, arm falling free of its perfect hold. Blue eyes, violet in the dark, glance back once as her hand brushes his arm in its withdrawal.

It's just like the Crystal Catacombs, that lingering look under thick lashes. The underground river of connection and all the things left unspoken. The wind ruffles her hair, making the loops sway as she turns to go and Zuko breaks. He will not do this again. He will not lose this moment again.

"And if…" she pauses as he speaks, "…if I wanted you to stay?"

It's coming out all wrong, he sounds both predatory and pathetic. How he managed such a feat, he doesn't know. The words hang in the air and Zuko can't look at her, can't bear to see the inevitable rejection.

_Why can't I do anything right!_

He knows his face must be bright red, even in the gloom. Agni, how wretched he must look. Zuko tries to summon the words to make it alright, make it just a friendly comment, but they are leaden in his mouth. She is still and silent at the edge of vision yet he can feel her like she's a part of him, every sense attuned to her presence. Zuko wishes anyone from his father through to Combustion Man would burst in and start a fight just to relieve the tension.

_I should just go…It's over…she's not interested…_

His chest is devoid of lightning. It's devoid of anything, hope draining, sucking on emptiness. Knowing there will never be anyone that understands him like her. Now he's a compass without True North.

Then Katara grasps his hand and all the palace's torches blaze suddenly. He drags his gaze up to meet hers and sees her, really sees her, just as she is seeing him.

"Zuko…" she whispers and he aches with how she says it. Her eyes are liquid and she is looking right through him. Katara squeezes his sweaty palm and he thinks his chest might burst. She is so beautiful. Kind and loving and powerful. She is every good thing he wants to be and every flaw he has, mastered.

"I love you," the words burst out of him. She breaks into a radiant smile and grabs his other hand, squeezing them both tighter.

They laugh suddenly, tension expelled in a sudden breath before moving closer.

Katara's lips part as her eyes darken. She has the most tempting lips, he can't believe he's never noticed, perhaps he never let himself notice before… He does now, he badly wants to kiss them.

The pulse under his fingers is racing, is she nervous, excited or both? She's looking at his lips now and Zuko feels he might just fall off the roof, his head is swimming.

They stare at each other, heedless of anyone watching as the wind plays with both their hair. Her eyes trace his scar but for once he doesn't feel ashamed. She's seen him at his very worst and forgiven him. What does burnt flesh matter now?

"I wish I could heal this, what he did to you…" Katara says and places her palm against the scar tissue as he's dreamed of her doing for so long. He closes his eyes and leans into her touch.

"You already have…"

They don't have the Spirit Water but he doesn't need it. Katara's kiss is magic, sweeter than any miracle cure, as she stands on tiptoes to reach him. He kisses back, willing her to feel all the fire he has for her. Instinctually they entwine and it's right in the way everything before it has been wrong. His hands are running through her glorious hair as he savours her taste. Katara, his moon. The woman he loves at last in his embrace.

She breaks the kiss, breathless and giggling. It tickles against his neck and the night catches their muffled laughter. Her eyes are bright with delight and more than a little mischief. Zuko throws his head back letting the joy flow from his chest. The burden of years and the weight of a thousands cares sloughs off his shoulders. The stars are a blazing field of lights, all the stronger now their king and queen - the luminaries - are at play on earth.

"Stay with me…" Zuko asks. He holds her close, hating the weakness in his tone.

Katara presses her palm to his broad chest where they know another scar is burned that will never fully heal. She looks up at him, gaze firming.

"Always."

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so glad to finally write something for Zutara and be a part of a shipping week (esp the original one!) 
> 
> The title refers the 2013 Man Booker prize-winning novel The Luminaries which was just adapted into a great BBC TV Series. Two literal star-crossed lovers and Astral Twins face numerous trials to be together. Given the ‘Sun and the Moon’ motif of Zutara aka the Luminaries, I felt it was appropriate.
> 
> This was written very fast (in fact it was meant to be flash fiction but got out of hand), so please forgive any typos, tense change, repetition or cheesiness. I just wanted to get something out there. I hope I did these wonderful characters some sort of justice!
> 
> The rooftop location was inspired by a scene from a brilliant Zutara fanfic I now cannot find the name of. It’s quite political and charts Katara rediscovering herself as an ambassador to the Fire Nation after breaking up with Aang. I will update if/when I find the name and author.


End file.
